The present invention relates to a pickup apparatus and, more particularly, to a pickup apparatus which selectively picks up and pulls out any thin plate member individually from a number of thin plate members accommodated in a number of respective sections of a tray.
Conventionally, chip resistors, etc. are manufactured in such a manner that a large-size insulated board with a surface electrode and a resistor formed each in unit regions is divided into long bar-shaped board members along breaking grooves pre-formed in the board. The bar-shaped board members are coated with a paste for forming a side electrode. A large number of the bar-shaped board members are placed side by side in a baking tray and they are then baked therein. Thereafter, it is determined whether any of the bar-shaped board members have a defect and if so, they are pulled out from the tray for disposal, while the bar-shaped board members without defects are fed to a dividing device and divided into chip-shaped boards.
Recently, bar-shaped board members with defects are singled out and removed from a baking tray prior to the step of forming a side electrode thereon, in order to make the steps of manufacturing boards more efficient.
The baking tray is divided into a number of small sections, each having e.g. about 2 mm in width, and the bar-shaped board members are inserted individually into the small sections. As a space of each of the sections is too small to insert a finger of the hand therein in order to pick up the bar-shaped board member placed therein, it is difficult to pick up the bar-shaped board member with a defect and pull it out from the section of the tray. Although it is also possible to use tweezers for picking up and pulling out the bar-shaped board member with a defect from the section of the baking tray, this manual work is apparently inefficient.
Therefore, the demand for automating the work of picking up and pulling out the bar-shaped board members with defects from the sections of the baking tray has been growing rapidly in the field at electronic parts plants, etc. However, in the existing circumstances, the work for picking up and pulling out the bar-shaped board members with defects is still done manually.